On February 17th, 2018 the Russian National VTES Championship 2018 was held in Moscow, Russia with 8 players attending the final tournament. The final standings after 2 rounds and the final were as follows:

This is the video from the live stream of the final round of the 2017 VTES tournament in Helsinki, Finland on July 29th, 2017. The actual video starts at 14:30 with interviews of the finalists before the game. Seating starts at 23:00, the actual game starts at around 32:00, and ends two hours later at 2:32:00.

This year’s main tournament of the North American VTES Championship was won by Martin Weinmayer (from Austria), making him the second European winning the NAC, as well as the first European to win both the NAC and the EC. (Brian Moritz (USA) was the first VTES player to win both NAC and EC). He was so kind to write a report of the final round of the NAC Day 2 tournament, where won with his Stanislava Dominiate Bleed & Vote deck.

I sat myself right in front of Weenie Dem Bleed. On the bright side though, I wasn’t the number one table threat, and my starting hand consisted of 2x Villein 1x Giants Blood 1x Dreams, which let me survive well enough to bring out Stanislava and Mark Decker.

II. Gameplan A

Given the positioning and the deck he played, Brad was clearly the most threat to my gamewin. I would want Mariya to oust Brad, and let her weaken Alex for the heads-up. I knew that I would most likely need to backoust Bill at some point, giving Alex a strong position.

III. First VP At The Table

Mariya Parity Shifted Brad to 2 pool, but got the possible oust denied from her grandprey by tapping her other Vampire with a Scalpel Tongue. Seeing himself getting ousted by Aching Beauty, Brad wanted Mariya to go, and I was free of a crosstable block from Anneke. Eventually the constant pressure of the Dementation bleed also forced me to change plans and oust Mariya before she got Brad. A Parity Shift and a bleed for 6 took care of her 11 pool.

IV. Gameplan B

Getting rid of Brad with Mariya didnt quiet work out, although she weakened him a lot, and I had an opportunity to oust him before he would recover. Oust your Prey as soon as possible, odd enough, seemed like a reasonable winning play for once.

V. Getting into the Heads-Up

I had Reigns of Power in my hand, which would oust Brad and get Bill to 5 pool, ultimately leading to the heads-up with Alex. After some considerations and giving him 3 turns to oust his prey, Alex agreed and let the vote pass.

V. One Card To Change It All

What card could possibly make Stanislava and Xaviar regret having their precious Inner Circle and Justicar titles? Fear of Mekhet hit Xaviar at 10 blood, while Stanislava was at 6.

I needed a big hit on Alex to oust him soon, so playing a Villein on Stanislava and let her burn would be too slow. The next view turns became a struggle to maneuver around the right blood amount on my vampires, while the Fear of Mekhet lay waste to my ready region.

This one card cost me 15 blood (dodging 5 of them with Villein) before finally burning alongside with my Justicar. In case you don’t like Inner Circle members hanging around on your table, you might wanna give it a try.

Letting me into the headsup and then finish me off with the Fear was a great plan from Alex.

VI. Turning the Tides

After Fear of Mekhet, Alex had the stronger position in the heads up. He had +2 poolgain on me and +1 minion advantage. When he was at 13 pool however, I had the right cards ready.

On July 16th, 2017 the VTES Belgian National Championship 2017 was held in Bruxelles, Belgium with 19 players attending the tournament. The final standings after 3 rounds and the finals were as follows:

Congratulations to Martin for his win of the Belgian Nationals 2017. Players from seven different countries, namely from Belgium, France, Germany, Slovakia, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands participated in the tournament.